Atava Garcia Swiecicki is guided by her dreams and her Mexican, Polish, and Hungarian ancestors. She received a BA in feminist studies from Stanford University and a master’s degree from the Indigenous Mind Program at Naropa University in Oakalnd. Atava has studied healing arts extensively for over thirty years and has been mentored by herbalists, curanderas, and traditional knowledge keepers. She works as a clinical herbalist and teacher. She is the founder of the Ancestral Apothecary School of Herbal, Folk, and Indigenous Medicine on Ohlone territory in Oakland, and she currently lives in unceded Tewa Pueblo territory in the Southwest. Her personal website is ancestralapothecary.com, and the website for her school is ancestralapothecaryschool.com.